Closing Out September

Faceback offered me a video of my September Moments to share this morning, I declined, but decided to offer a bit more of my September here.

Beginning with - I read yesterday that September 2018 was the third wettest recorded in Iowa. My total for the month, emptied and noted from the guage on the deck, was 11.15 inches - most of which came down the first week in September. Now it sounds like this first part of October is going to also be WET. Too bad it couldn't have been spread out over the summer when the crops/farmers needed it instead of now, when they are trying to get in to the fields to harvest.

I've shared photos and written about the lovely Rose of Sharon bush that was here when we bought the place and died four years ago. Also about the new plants coming up in the same area the last two years and how one of them has started blooming.

That's it on the left - the same pink as the original bush. The bloom on the right, which looks more white, to me, is on one of the other new starts I let grow. Now, I'm looking forward to the third plant blooming, hopefully, next year, and seeing what color its flowers are. And I am reminded of the large bush at the southeast corner of Grandma Ridnour's large flower bed, close to the gate to the farm yard, that was tri-colored - pink, white and blue.

One nice afternoon I was sitting, reading, on the patio and enjoying the soft breeze and the melodious sounds from the Carson wind chime.

And the equally pleasant, to me, clack, clacking of the bamboo chimes.
The Carson chimes brought thoughts of the daughter who gave them to me.
The bamboo, memories of a long ago September on Nantucket where I first fell in love with their strange, aching, resonance.

September's photo file is full of pictures I took thinking I might use them somehow in a blog post.

Like the sweet, teeny flowers of the sprengeri (asparagus fern). This has always been a favorite plant - one I've had many of over the years - and first discovered its flowers when I used to have them as house plants, hanging in the windows on Tuck Corner and The Little House.

Or the stem of withered oak leaves found on the deck with its tiny unformed acorn, cut down before it had a chance to grow.

And the alien form lying on the neighbor's deck. What was that? I had to take a zoom photo and then enlarge it even more in order to see that it, too, was a cluster of oak leaves.

September brought a visit from a dear friend which included her sharing of what she had done with all the tee shirts from all the golf events she and her late husband had attended.
The logos from them were saved and made into bell pulls for his children, her brother and her. This is her's. The melon colored one near the top is from the 1991 Ryder Cup on Kiawah Island South Carolina. (We watched some of this year's Ryder Cup on T.V. last weekend.) Such a thoughtful and inventive way to preserve memories.

This year, September's weather was perfect for Balloon Days. And while none came right over our pond, some were close enough to take pictures of from our patio.

Just as the photo file is full of pictures of sunsets, clouds, flowers, sunrises, etc. too myriad to share, my desk is littered with quotes, snippets of poems and thoughts, memories and ideas for blog posts.
"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." (T.S. Eliot) Who couldn't write a whole blog post about that?

"Reason has no foothold at four or five in the morning; at those hours, reason sleeps and the mind breeds monsters: monsters of fear, of paranoia. So you toss and turn." (From Peter Robinson's Cold Is The Grave) For me it is more like two, three or four in the morning, but yes, I could get more than one blog post about the ugly, disquieting thoughts of those hours I toss and turn trying to go back to sleep.

One of the last days of September - putting away the chairs and cushions, etc. My car was under the patio roof. Bud came in from his run and said if I didn't move my car soon the cardinal climber would take it over - that it was already reaching for one of the tires. Ha!

It really has done well this year, in all four locations, but especially where it gets the early morning sun.

♪ The leaves of brown came tumbling down
Remember in September in the rain 
The sun went out just like a dying ember
That September in the rain ♪

A final closing thought about September - on its last day, I reached 100 'friends' on Facebook since joining nine years ago. You could say, compared to many, I'm slow. Or you might just say I'm selective. 😼